May 23, 2016

BEA 2016 Recap: Day Two

For the last day of BEA I decided to wake up at 5 AM and leave at 5:30 because of the traffic I had seen the previous day. However, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't sleep and then the person who was supposed to pick me up didn't show up so I had to call an Uber and leave at 5:50. Thankfully, Steph was holding a place in the ticket line for me so I went over to that. My friend decided to come with me to BEA on the last day so he saved me a spot in the normal line while I was in the ticketing line.

After waiting in line for an hour the tickets for Marissa Meyer (which were my main goal for all of BEA and the signing I wanted to go to the most) ran out on the third person. Both Steph and I were pretty upset but I picked up the above three tickets in case I had time to go to them and went over to my friend in the normal line. As soon as the hall opened, he went to the Little Brown booth to grab me the ARC's they were dropping and I ran over to the Macmillan booth for the Caraval ticket drop.

After the ticket drop my friend came over to me and we both went to the signing area where we went from one signing to the next, since there was two of us we could do two lines at once.

After all these signings I went over to the Macmillan booth and got in line for the Leigh Bardugo sampler signing. The Shadow and Bone trilogy was one of my favorite series so I had to see Leigh Bardugo again (I saw her at BEA 2015 when she signed ARCs of Six of Crows). While I was waiting in line I finally saw Tzivi and started talking to her. We met and became friends in BEA 2015 so it was good to see her again and talk in person.

After the Leigh Bardugo signing I went over to the autographing area again and, you guessed it, went to more signings.

It was when I was in a line for an author that was low on my priority list that I decided to try my luck and ask on Twitter if anyone didn't want their Marissa Meyer ticket. I had given up all hope at that point and not getting to visit Marissa Meyer was the one disappointment of BEA. However, less than 10 minutes later, Mary H. (@knoxdiver) replied to my tweet and said that if I came to the Caraval line she would give me her ticket! My friend was already in that line so I literally ran over to him, dropped the books I had, found Mary where she surprised me again; this time with a front of the line pass! Thanking her a bunch of times I ran over to the Marissa Meyer signing that was almost over and used my front of the line ticket.

Getting to see Marissa Meyer again (saw her at BEA 2015 when she was signing Fairest) was probably my happiest moment at BEA and I will be eternally thankful to Mary because of that. After Marissa Meyer (!!!) I went back to the Caraval line where my friend was saving me a spot to meet Stephanie Garber who was my #2 goal for all of BEA.

After the Caraval line I went back to the autographing area where I was able to jump from line to line since both my friend and Steph were saving me spots in different lines.

Afterwards, I got in line for the Harlequin authors signing while simultaneously getting someone to save me a spot in the Sabaa Tahir. This was probably the most stressful part of the day for me as I depended on the people next to me in line saving me a spot so I could go from line to line, sometimes having to have my spot saved for over an hour. However, during all these lines I met and saw a bunch of blogger friends which made the waiting a bit easier.

After all the signings above I went back to the Sabaa Tahir where Lisa (@ConsummateReadr) was holding me a spot, we'd been talking through Twitter for over a year when I finally got to meet her at BEA.

Since the Sabaa Tahir line hadn't started moving yet I quickly stopped by the check in area to drop off my books and got to take a picture with Mishma (@chasingfaes) who was another blogger I'd been talking to on Twitter prior to meeting at BEA.

After taking the picture I ran over to even more signings and authors!

Right about that time Lisa messaged me saying the Sabaa Tahir line was moving so of course I rushed back there to make it to the signing.

Afterwards, we went over to where Steph was holding us a line for the Gemina ARC drop and of course the line was super long because there were a TON of ARCs and everyone wanted one. It was then that we heard of some ARC drops so Steph and I went to them while the others stayed behind. While she returned after, I went to a couple more drops and signings before returning to the line.

After somehow making it to all the signings happening at that time that I wanted to go to I returned to the Gemina line. Jay Kristoff actually ran by and recorded all the fans cheering in the line as he passed by (Steph even found him earlier and got a copy of his ARC that wasn't being given out other wise).

At the end of the Gemina drop I was exhausted and didn't have anything else on my schedule so I chatted a bit with blogger friends and walked around the floor. Right when I was about to leave I saw the Amateurs signing which was on my schedule but I had completely forgotten.

It was also then that Isabel Bandeira tweeted out asking if everyone wanted the Bookishly Ever After poster at her booth that they had to throw out otherwise. I happily said yes and walked over there, we talked a bit, and she even signed the poster!

After that I was done for real so I bid my farewell to McCormick and called an Uber which my friend and I used to go back to where I was staying. We went out to dinner later and then I returned to my room, did some book stuff, and fell asleep.

1 comment:

OMG ALL THESE AUTHOR PHOTOS!!!! That is AWESOME that you got to meet so many amazing authors and get such great books! You looked like you had the time of your life! Hopefully I'll be able to get to BEA one day, BookCon was fun but I can't imagine how amazing BEA must be! GREAT POST!!!